One Day Offline

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There once was a blog I wrote called Stop Scrolling, Start Doing, which, to this day, is one my favorite posts I’ve ever written. In the post, I mentioned how annoyed I had become at myself about how I was always on my phone, and how I didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of mindlessly going straight for my phone in moments of boredom.
Something needed to change, and that something did when I took off to Europe for three months and my phone…died. I knew this was a long time coming especially since my phone had a cracked screen for over a year and a half, so I took it as a sign that for the next three months, maybe I shouldn’t default to zombie mode and focus on my phone when I could be experiencing Europe.
The three months were exciting and eye-opening without a phone, but more than anything, I felt it was inconvenient, especially since my livelihood and career as a travel blogger and vlogger depend on social media and the internet. Above all, it was a nice reminder that phones and technology are not the enemy, but an extreme addiction that inhibits our likeliness to do other, more tangible things is.
Two weeks ago, Jo and I received an email inviting us to New York City and the Hudson Valley to take part in a campaign for Mashable and Cathay Pacific called #onedayoffline with other travel influencers. The name alone had us pumped up, so we immediately said “yes.” I mean, honestly, could there have been a more relevant campaign to my present and past few months than this?
The fact that they chose travel influencers for this campaign, I think is one of the best parts. First off, we’re online almost as much as teenage girls – constantly Snapchatting our locations, tweeting about what crazy stuff we’re getting into, and Facebooking to connect with our friends and family back home. Our success as travel influencers depends on connectivity and reader engagement, so we literally need the internet to survive. But secondly, on the other hand, choosing us for this campaign is also logical because it’s our job to be experts at both living in the moment and capturing it – that’s what the campaign is all about.
Picture a weekend looking like this:
And not just looking like this, but for once, a weekend with no connectivity and no electronics (don’t worry, these photos were taken before we fully committed the idea). Just thinking of the amount of activities, and outdoor activities at that, we did reminds me of what it feels like to be a kid again. Look at everything else we did over in our blog post, Disconnect to Reconnect. When was the last time I played volleyball? The last time I hula-hooped? The last time I woke up to do morning yoga?
It’s amazing how muchyou do when you put your phone down.
Spend a day offline; you’ll be happy you did.

Check out the One Day Offline campaign at www.onedayoffline.com and see if you’re up for the challenge. Also, shout out to @CathayPacific for giving travel creators a weekend of sanity, and @Mashable for helping make it all happen.